It is common for advertisers to place advertisements and other messages (“content”) in advertising spaces at fixed locations, such as billboards or on buildings. The content is periodically changed at the discretion of the advertiser, or at the discretion of the person leasing the advertising space. The effectiveness of the content depends largely on the number of people who see it, as well as the relevance of the content to the people who see it.
To allow more people to see an advertisement, advertisements are also commonly placed on moving vehicles such as buses, taxicabs, and the like. In fact, trucks with the sole purpose of serving as mobile billboards are becoming more common. By making the advertisement mobile, not only are more people able to see it, but advertisements can also be delivered to areas that might otherwise be unreachable because of advertising restrictions or prohibitive costs.
Recently, mobile advertisers have been employing position determination methods, such as methods based on the US Global Positioning. System (GPS), to document the penetration of each particular advertisement. Satellite positioning system (SATPOS) devices that determine position using GPS satellites are quite effective for indicating the position of marine vessels, land vehicles, airplanes, and other such crafts and conveyances that can serve as a mobile billboard. By tracking and logging the location of a mobile advertisement as a function of time, the provider of such services can determine where and when a particular advertisement was on display and bill the client accordingly.
A shortcoming associated with some prior art implementations is that a billboard or advertisement affixed to a vehicle cannot be changed en route. Consequently, the content provided is infrequently changed and relatively static. Also, because the content may not be relevant to the people viewing it, the effectiveness of the advertisement is likely reduced.
Alternatively, a dynamic advertising method can be used instead of static advertising. That is, the content that is displayed can be changed en route as a function of time using, for example, rotating panels or other types of well known changeable displays. In this case, the content displayed is selected from a number of available advertisements preloaded onto the mobile advertising vehicle.
Even with the use of dynamic advertising, the prior art remains problematic because the advertisements are generally changed according to a fixed schedule without regard to the audience that may be present. Accordingly, the content being displayed may not be relevant to the people who are viewing it and, as a result, the effectiveness of the advertisement is reduced.
Not only is the advertisement itself perhaps wasted, but the opportunity to provide a more relevant advertisement is lost. Advertising revenues typically depend on the effectiveness of the content, which in turn is dependent on the ability to reach a target group of people for which the content is especially relevant. Consequently, potential income to providers of advertising services can be lost if they do not have the capability to effectively match advertisements to different target groups.
Therefore, what is needed is a system and/or method that can more effectively target advertisements and other content provided by mobile advertisers. The present invention provides a novel solution to this need.